Say These 14 Phrases and Sound Instantly Smarter

You've been studying English for a while. You feel like you're studying the books, you're watching TV, you're listening to podcasts, you're watching movies in English, but you're just not advancing in your vocabulary. Well, today's lesson is for you. I'll teach you the advanced phrases that you could actually use in your everyday conversations. That are not normally taught by English teachers. I've been writing these phrases down as I use them in my own conversations. So I'm so excited to teach them to you today. Make sure to visit englishwithcala.com if you want to learn more about this list of phrases. Now let's get started with the lesson. Our first phrase is so common in English. Write this one down or pay attention. The phrase is to hold something against someone. But you have against my family. So often you dislike someone or you hold a grudge against them. It's for a personal reason if you say you're holding something against someone or you might say, please don't hold this against me. This means don't dislike me because of this thing that I've said that might be offensive or it might be considered, you know, a weakness or whatever it might be. If you feel like someone is unfairly judging you or criticizing you, you might say, I feel like she's holding something against me. I don't know why she doesn't like me. So this means maybe you're in a professional context like a job or workplace, but someone is holding something against you that is personal. Maybe they just don't like your personality. Maybe one time you forgot their birthday or something. Something that was a personal reason why they don't like you that you feel is unfair. It's unfair that they're judging you harshly because of it. So tone is really important with this phrase. You don't want to come off as offended or like offensive or too harsh when you're saying this phrase like, do you have something against me? Instead of saying, it's like you have something against me. So obviously tone is really important here. You can use this phrase in a calm way to get down to the issue with someone. So a really polite way to say that you're not understanding someone, not just their language, maybe just their ideas really complex. You could say, I'm not following you. This just prompts them that they need to explain what they've been saying a little bit more. I'm just not following or I'm not following you. This phrase is very natural to say, I'm not quite understanding because I'm not following you. Can you go into more detail about this part? So you're offering, you know, a way that they can clarify their ideas or their plan to you. I'm not following. Native speakers definitely use this phrase to politely say that they don't understand and you can even offer an apology before this phrase. Like, I'm so sorry. I'm not following you here. This just means what you're saying, I either miss something or there's just not enough context to understand. Another supernatural phrase is add a glance. Add a glance means you're looking at something quickly without deeply looking at the details and reading it very precisely. So for instance, some of them might say, hey, did you catch my report? Maybe they turned in a report to you or they copied you on an email or something and you'll say, yes, add a glance. It looked good. I'll just have to look at the numbers very carefully later. So that just means you know, you took a first look at it. You didn't actually read it very thoroughly. You're just letting them know that you've just glanced or looked at it quickly. Now a literal glance would be like, like a second looking at something. But when we use this phrase, add a glance, it just means you weren't super careful about looking at anything. You might have looked at it for a minute rather than just a second, but you just weren't careful when you examined it. First glance, everything looked fine. But so native speakers often use this phrase add a glance. If they want to sound confident, like they looked at it quickly and from what they can tell, it looks good. It's like add a glance, it looked good. And they often just use this to say like, it's my first impression. I didn't have a deep analysis of this thing. The next phrase on our lesson is at the end of the day, at the end of the day. This phrase is used to signal in your speaking and your conversation that you're going to kind of summarize or give a final opinion or conclusion about something. You'll hear this a lot when people are speaking in a podcast. I think that's where I heard this phrase recently. And it's just like at the end of the day, it's like after hearing everything after thinking about it, here's my conclusion. At the end of the day, someone might say something, like maybe you're talking about a lot of issues you're having in life, stress, whatever it might be, and the person might respond by saying, at the end of the day, all that matters is your health. That means even though there's all these issues, my summary, my conclusion is you need to worry about your health. You often make a good point when you use this phrase. At the end of the day, we should focus on the positive things in life. This phrase is really great for giving advice to someone like I just did. Like at the end of the day, focus on this. This next phrase is a bit like the phrase added glance. The phrase is as far as I know. It's used a little bit differently. Let me explain. So when someone asks you a question and you're not sure that you are 100% right or you don't definitely know what you have a pretty good guest or idea, you can say as far as I know, as far as I know, and then you give your answer. As far as I know, yes. Someone might say, hey, is the meeting still scheduled for tomorrow? And you haven't checked your email and you haven't talked to whoever's leading the meeting. You might say, well, as far as I know, we're still having the meeting. This means even though I'm not checking my email actively, you're just going off what you know you haven't heard any other information. So it just gives your answer. And it just shows that you're not 100% certain. You have a pretty good idea when we use this phrase as far as I know. So there's other phrases that are used really similarly to this. One phrase is to the best of mine knowledge. So it's like saying, I'm not completely confident. But here is my answer. I've limited knowledge. Another phrase is off the top of my head. So this means someone's asking you a question and you're not looking at exactly what they're asking you about, but you know it pretty well. Like, say off the top of my head. And this again, just clarifies that you're not 100% sure, but you're a little bit confident in your answer. And then finally, we often use the phrase, don't quote me on that. That means, you know, don't tell other people what I just told you because I'm not 100% sure, but that is my knowledge for now. Like go like a, a lot of money. Don't quote me on that. That's kind of a joking phrase as well. If you tell someone something and you're not 100% sure about it, don't call me on this. So a lot of these phrases in this lesson do kind of soften your speech, make it more polite and natural. And this next one is exactly like that. The phrase is it's not set in stone. So it means that something is not official or permanent. Like a statue would be set in stone. It's permanent unless you break it somehow. Oftentimes when we schedule something or, you know, we have an agenda or a schedule and it's kind of flexible. It could change because say, well, it's not set in stone. This is probably the most common way to use this phrase. Or maybe you'll say, hey, we should meet for coughing next week. Maybe Tuesday. I have to look at my schedule. I'm not set in stone yet, but we can probably do that. It means it's not official yet. Nothing set in stone. A really natural phrase that native English speakers use is to get the hang of something. This phrase just means that you are gaining the skill or you're getting good at something with practice. And this is true for just anything in life. The more you practice, the more you get the hang of it. You get a hang of it. When I first started posting English lessons online, I looked very robotic and I always sounded like I was out of breath because I just wasn't used to speaking to a camera. It didn't come naturally to me. But after making a lot of videos, I kind of got the hang of it. I hope you agree because I feel like I've been doing this for a while. So when we just practice something or do it a lot and it becomes natural or we come good at it, we say we have got the hang of it. A really nice bold phrase to use in English is when someone is exactly correct or they describe something that you've been having trouble finding words to describe correctly because like, you hit the nail on the head. This is a nice bold, dramatic phrase just to compliment someone's explanation or someone's knowledge. Maybe you're talking to a friend, you're kind of confiding in them. And you say, I've been really stressed and anxiously and your friend says, well, there's a lot of uncertainty going on right now. That's probably while you're stressed. And you know, you think about it and that makes a lot of sense. You might say, you hit the nail on the head. That is totally right. So this is a really nice phrase to use to kind of compliment someone and just say, you know, you're exactly correct. Good thinking. Another great phrase that goes right along with this last one is to go the extra mile. It's a really positive phrase. It kind of compliments someone's work or someone's effort. So someone in life that goes the extra mile always does more than what is expected. This idiom is so common to use. And I always say, you know, I'm a friend that is always trying to go the extra mile. I'm trying to help out my friends, you know, do more than what's expected. I call the extra mile. This can also be used in really professional context. as well. You know, if you're describing yourself as an employee, you can say, I'm always willing to go the extra mile for my clients or for my coworkers. This means you're trying to do a really good job. And again, what is more than what is expected of you if you're going the extra mile? And if you want to compliment someone's work and just tell them it's outstanding, it's really great. You know, it was better than what you expected. Of course, just tell them, thank you so much for going the extra mile on this. And while teaching this phrase, I just had a funny thought in the UK and Canada, I wonder if they say, go the extra kilometer. Maybe I hope that you're using this next phrase because it is so common. It's so natural. If you just want to say that you are going to keep someone informed, you're going to give them the up to date information about something that involves them, you can say, I'm going to keep you in the loop to keep someone in the loop. Or if you're emailing someone and you just want to let them know, like, please give me the latest information as it comes available. I could say, just keep me in the loop on this. It's professional. Yeah, it is a casual phrase to say, keep me in the loop or I'll keep you in the loop. I'm off. Keep you in the loop. Recently, I was invited to a barbecue by a friend or a friend and they said, oh, I'll keep you in the loop on what time we're going to leave. So they just mean that they're going to text me and let me know like what time they're going so that we can go at the same time. They're keeping me informed. A nice natural phrase that we use in English to say that we are going to deal with a problem only if it actually happens. We're not going to think of it ahead of time is to say, we're going to cross that bridge when we come to it. Or we can often say, we can cross that bridge if it happens to cross the bridge. This means to deal with a problem if it happens when we come to it. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. This is a really practical phrase just to say that you're not going to waste your mental efforts on thinking about problems that haven't actually happened yet. Or they might actually not happen in the future. Oftentimes my children, you know, they're thinking about these crazy scenarios like that probably won't happen. And oftentimes I don't have an answer to you. What would we do if this happened? I'll just say, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. This just gives them the promise that we will deal with this problem if it actually happens. But oftentimes you use this phrase if you suspect that you won't actually have a problem or issue with something. One phrase that I really love to teach to English learners is easier said than done. Easier said than done is such a natural thing that English speaker like myself say all of the time to mean that something is actually harder to execute than it sounds. Although it may look easy to do something, you can say it's easier said than done. It's easier to say you're going to do it than actually do it. Sometimes we use this phrase too. If somebody has a responsibility and they say, I promise, I promise I do it. I'll do it. You can say, well, it's easier said than done. You know, I just need you to take this seriously. An example of this would be, you know, if your kids really want a new pet like a new puppy, and they say, we promise we'll take care of them. We'll do all the work. We'll clean up after the dog will feed them. They'll say, well, that's easier said than done. This just means that even though you're saying this, it's hard to follow. Up on your promises here. Easier said than done. Do you ever use this next phrase? Let's call it a day. So when you have, you know, reached a point in your work or maybe you're trying to build something or work on something in your house and you're just kind of done with it. You're either tired or you feel like you got a good stopping point. You might say, let's call it a day. Let's call it a day right here. Let's just call it a day. This phrase is great for if you're working or studying and you just come to a good point where you just want to stop and you're very like, I want to stop. I'm absolutely done. I'm going to call it a day right here. You're telling someone that you're done without saying like, I'm done. I'm quitting. It's, you know, a more positive phrase, but it tells exactly what you want to say. And another really great casual phrase that you should be using in your everyday English. If you want to tell someone that you agree with them or you're having the same understanding, you feel like you're in a good spot with your plan or whatever it might be. You could say, we are totally on the same page or we are on the same page. Or if you disagree with someone or if you feel like they're understanding what's happening differently than you, you could say, we are not on the same page here. We are on the same page. A great way to start talking about an issue or a problem with your coworkers or with your friends is to say, let's make sure we're all on the same page. It just means let's make sure we're all agreeing. We're all working together. It's a positive thing to be on the same page. I love to know in the comments today, which phrases in this lesson you have already used in your English conversations and which ones you're excited to use now that you've learned them. If you want more advanced English lessons like this one, make sure to join my monthly membership at English with Kayla.com. I'll leave the link in the description. I love teaching you new phrases just like this one. I hope you'll watch my next lesson that's going to be on screen. I'll see you guys in the next video. Goodbye.